The federal government says it has uncovered 1,500 workers who joined the Federal Civil Service with fake appointment letters and suspended the salaries of 3,000 civil servants.

The Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Folasade Yemi-Esan, who said this in Abuja on Tuesday, vowed to delist them from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS).

Ms Yemi-Esan added that over 1,000 persons were said to have been discovered in one ministry, while 500 others were found in other ministries, departments and agencies during a service-wide verification exercise.

 The head of the service said the government would spare no effort to remove their names from the IPPIS to serve as a deterrent to others. She stated that with the institutionalisation of the IPPIS, the government could track fake employment.

She also mentioned that this had reduced the risk of employing less efficient, unqualified and undependable personnel to handle government affairs.

“For instance, in the past year, in one ministry alone, over 1,000 individuals bearing fake letters of appointment were detected. It is disheartening to point out that the office recently received a report from the Federal Civil Service Commission forwarding the names of over 500 persons in various MDAs in possession of fake letters of appointment,” she explained.

She added, “Similarly, following the outcome of the Service-Wide Verification Exercise for officers recruited from 2013 to 2020, the Federal Civil Service Commission has also requested the suspension of the salaries of over 3,000 officers across the MDAs. These officers failed to appear for the exercise pending further clearance.”

She added that as of March, over 380,000 officers had been captured on the IPPIS payroll comprising 66,000 and 320,000 for core and non-core MDAs, respectively.

(NAN)